


With the Music

by Clockwork



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Continuation of canon, M/M, Prom, Smells like teen spirit, friendships formed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 03:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clockwork/pseuds/Clockwork
Summary: Kyle Valenti is an ass and Alex Manes is an emo bad ass. But after that, caught up in feeling useless, and trying to keep Max's code, Michael finds himself with a message that no one should know, and a chance to find peace from the static in his head. Not to mention derailing what could have been a good friendship and sets a path to a relationship that will play out later in his life.





	With the Music

Prom was meant to be one of the last blowouts before the end of the year. One of the last moments before graduation and life changes and leaving it all behind. It was dressing up and acting like anything but a grown up, and it usually ended with alcohol and sex and parents looking the other way as if none of that ever happened.

Alex hadn’t gone into prom expecting it to be a good night. Teenagers are some of the most vicious beings on the planet, only outmatched by kids from kindergarten up to their teen years, and living with a being different had been hard enough with the bullying that came at home, but it was only getting worse at school. It was almost over though, and soon enough he’d be leaving this all behind. He wasn’t sure where or what he was going to do, but it wouldn’t be here where Jesse Manes was. Where others like his former best friend were. He’d turned into such a cliche but until that night he hadn’t turned into a raging homophobe. 

Maybe someone else had egged him on. Maybe it was just how life was for teenagers, and this was the only way this was ever going to play out once Kyle knew the truth. 

Alex hadn’t looked back after he brushed past Guerin. No matter how much he wanted to cling to Michael, to grab his hand and pull Michael along with him, he knew he couldn’t. Whatever it was he wanted in that moment, like his friendships and the life he dreamt of with a house and a husband and a damn dog in the backyard, none of that would be any more real for Alex than the ache deep in his chest to cling to Michael in that moment and never let go.

Instead he kept walking. 

Michael watched him go, staring after him and not caring that he looked like a love sick dog. Rage built up within, hand closing into a fist. He didn’t even have to go near him. He didn’t even have to be seen, but he could take care of this and it would be over before Kyle even knew what hit him. 

And then Max grabbed his arm.

“Michael, no.”

Jaw tightening, looking up at Max, eyes narrowing to mere slits. 

“Walk it off,” he growled, voice low. “But don’t you dare ruin this night for Isobel and risk outing us like that.”

Isobel. Always for Isobel.

Jerking away from Max, Michael stormed off, away from the lights of the party, from the tall lights over the parking lot and out into the vast darkness of the desert where the stars would finally come into view, and he could remember that somewhere out there was someone that cared about him and his pain, and not about protecting secrets and Isobel’s perfect life.

Except you can’t always walk away from everyone and everything. 

“Penny for your thoughts.”

There should have been shock, some kind of surprise, and there is to a degree in that he hadn’t realized she was hurrying after him. Glancing down at her feet, seeing the runs in her stockings where Maria had hurried after him, her heels abandoned somewhere along the way, and it at least made him slow his step. For her sake.

“You just happen to be roaming the desert?”

Giving her a wry, crooked smile that never lit up his eye, almost smiling though because he knew better that to buy that innocence, and nearly appreciated it. Even if the smile and all was pretending, being the boy he’s always been as if that was normal while storming through the desert. Not that Maria DeLuca needed eyes to read a person, he’d heard, and that alone made him nervous.

“I was…. In the parking lot when I saw you heading off on foot for Texas and thought I might tag along,” she said.

“So you left behind some guy with a case of blue balls? I feel special.”

“You should. He had some first class tequila on him,” she says, bringing her hand forward from her side, waggling the bottle in the moonlight. “Which I brought with me. Guess I’m never going to see those shoes again, but worth it,” she says, unscrewing the cap and taking a drink before handing the bottle out to him. 

Michael stared at it for a long breath, considering his options before taking it and taking a hard drink. It wasn’t acetone, but it would do for now. 

“Okay DeLuca, give. Why’d you follow me out here?” They weren’t close, though he’d seen her around a lot. She was tight with Liz and Alex, with Liz’s sister he knew, but not like they ran in the same circles. Or that he ran in any circles at all. 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“When you went past, I had a… a flash. Something told me I needed to come talk to you, to help you.”

Shifting uncomfortably, Michael shoved his hands in his pockets, head canting and looking her over slowly as it reassessing everything he’d thought about her. Sure he’d heard the stories about her mom, about how she could tell a person’s future. If it was true, and if he believed in that stuff, then he’d pretty sure he needed to spend as little time with Maria DeLuca as humanly possible. Even if he’s not human.

“You came to help me? Yeah, sorry to tell you, DeLuca, but I’m beyond hope. You’ve failed already.”

“Shut up,’ she said, hitting his arm with a flick of her hand before taking the bottle back. “Look, I don’t do this often, okay?” Enough people though she was odd already, and in high school odd was the absolute kiss of death. Not that she wanted to be like some of the girls, like Isobel Evans, but not an outcast. “I just wanted to tell you that…” 

She paused, head canting as if she was listening to someone talking, someone far off and whispering. Closing her eyes as she strained to hear and then rich brown eyes opening, blinking at him as if suddenly seeing him in a new light, even if they were in the dark. 

“The quiet doesn’t come with the music,” she said, face scrunching up because messages don’t always make sense to everyone, and she worried it wouldn’t to Michael either. “It comes from them.” Her gaze becomes more focused, offering a smile that’s tight, belying a nervousness she would never admit it. Using her gifts came easy. Admitting to them to someone that wasn’t one of her close friends was hard, but she couldn’t ignore the voice telling her to follow him. Not with how insistent it had been. “Sorry. They don’t always make sense.”

“They?” The sarcasm had faded, his hands shaking so that he balled them up in his pockets, arms tight at his side as if that could stop the pounding of his heart, the way it thundered in his ears and drowned out that noise. A noise he’d thought the guitar helped, but it was Alex. It had always been Alex.

Rolling her eyes, she took another drink. “Look, I know people talk and you know what I mean. Take it or leave it, Guerin. I’m just the messenger.” She glanced back towards the school and then towards Michael. “I don’t know what happened back there but you’re not the kind of guy to give up and just walk away. Fuck them and their bullshit. You’re stronger than those assholes.”

He snorted, giving her a look.

“What? You think I don’t see? Half this school is a bunch of rich jerks with too much time on their hands and too much handed to them and they look down on the rest of us. Most are just biding their time until they’ve got a diploma and can get the fuck out of here. Maybe that’s you too, but you’re not one of them. Like Rosa and me. We’re not one of them either. So you can let them tear you down like they’ve done to Rosa, or you can say fuck it and be the man you are.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Being a better man?”

“Damn right. Better man than most of them will ever be.”

The sound he made was nearly a laugh. “I can’t argue that. So that’s why you came out here? To read me my horoscope?”

Maria tensed then, her grip tightening on the bottle. She forced a smile but her eyes were cold, just staring at him as she bit back a dozen retorts, a dozen hurt words to cover that all this was is a reminded that she needed to keep her mouth shut and not try and help people just because her guides said she should.

“Yeah. I guess that’s it. Don’t get lost out here,” she said, twisting the cap on the bottle and tossing it at him before turning away, heading back across the sand towards the school.

Michael caught the bottle, glancing at it and then at her retreating form. “Hey DeLuca?”

“Yeah?” She didn’t look back.

“Thanks.”

Maria flipped him off and kept walking. 

“Yep, that’s about right,” he said, twisting off the cap and taking another drink, but he watched her go back to the school, thinking about what that meant. 

And trying not to think about what else she might know without being told, and how the fuck she knew even that much. Max’s rules were never meant to stand up to the reality of goddamn psychic ability, after all. 

“Fucking hell.” Chugging the rest of the bottle, Michael dropped it as if to drop kick it. His foot missed by a mile, but the bottle went flying into the air. At its peak, he made finger guns and the bottle exploded into a rain of tiny, glittering glass shards. 

But he headed back towards the school instead of storming out into desert. He thought about telling Max, but then that meant talking about Alex and he damn well wasn’t going to tell Max about Alex and his feelings for him. God, Max’s oversized head would fucking explode, he was sure.

The thought made him snort, not up for laughing. Not right now. 

Already though he was thinking about what Maria had said, and knowing that tomorrow he was going to see Alex, and find out if she was right. Find out if it’s Alex Manes that could quite the noise and center him here and now instead of it feeling as if his mind was picking up static from the universe. If she was right, and it did work, and Alex was the one meant to bring him peace? Michael knew that he was never letting him go.


End file.
